Datenvisualisierung 4

Multi-part plots and customisations

Daniela Palleschi

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

2024-01-31

Lesungen

For further reading and practice on this topic, I suggest reading Section 11.5 (Communication: Themes) in Wickham et al. (2023), and Chapter 4 (Representing summary statistics) in Nordmann et al. (2022).

Learning objectives

In this section we will learn to

  • build multi-part plots
  • adjust the position of geoms
  • customise our plots for better data communicate

Set-up

Packages

Today, we’re loading our relevant tidyverse packages directly: dplyr and ggplot. These are the only To aid us in loading in our data, we’re also loading the here package, and the janitor package which is useful for tidying up our data (e.g., the clean_names() function). To customise our plots we’re also using the ggthemes and patchwork packages. The former helps us produce plots that are colour-blind friendly, while the latter allows us to print multiple plots together. We also need a new package: gghalves.

pacman::p_load(tidyverse,
               here,
               janitor,
               ggthemes,
               patchwork,
               gghalves
               )

Data

We’re again working with our slightly altered version of the english dataset from the languageR package.

df_eng <- read_csv(
  here(
    "daten",
    "languageR_english.csv"
  )
) |> 
  clean_names() |> 
  rename(
    rt_lexdec = r_tlexdec,
    rt_naming = r_tnaming
  )

Dodged density plots

We can produce density plots mapped along a catgorical variable by using geom_half_violin() from the gghalves package.

df_eng %>% 
  ggplot() +
  aes(x = age_subject, y = rt_lexdec) +
  geom_half_violin(alpha = .8)
Abbildung 1: Dodged density plots with gghalves::geom_half_violin()

Adding a boxplot

We can also add another geom to add more information to the plot. Let’s add a boxplot.

df_eng %>% 
  ggplot() +
  aes(x = age_subject, y = rt_lexdec) +
  geom_half_violin(alpha = .8) +
  geom_boxplot()
Abbildung 2: Boxplot on top of our dodged density plot

position_nudge()

Maybe we want to move the boxplot so that it’s not overtop of the density plots, and so that it’s not quite as wide. We can do this by setting position to position_nudge(), and width to some value smaller than .75, which is the default width.

df_eng %>% 
  ggplot() +
  aes(x = age_subject, y = rt_lexdec) +
  geom_half_violin(alpha = .8) +
  geom_boxplot(width = .3, # make less wide
               position = position_nudge(x=0.2)
               )
Abbildung 3: Boxplot on top of our dodged density plot

position_jitter() for scatterplots

This is from a family of options that allow us to alter the position of geoms. For example, Abbildung 4 A and B both show the exact same data, but Abbildung 4 B includes position = position_jitter(0.2) to move overlapping points. This way we get a good idea of how many observations there were across reaction times (y-axis).

Code
df_eng |> 
  ggplot() +
  aes(x = age_subject, y = rt_lexdec) +
  geom_point() +
  labs(title = "geom_point()") +
df_eng |> 
  ggplot() +
  aes(x = age_subject, y = rt_lexdec) +
  geom_point(position = position_jitter(0.2),
             alpha = 0.2)+
  labs(title = "geom_point(position = position_jitter(0.2))") +
  
  plot_annotation(tag_levels = "A")

Abbildung 4: Plotting points along a categorical variable without (A) and with (B) position = position_jitter(0.2). Plot B also includes alpha = 0.2

Combining all three

If we put all of these plots together, we get a Abbildung 5.

Code
fig_no_colour <-
  df_eng %>% 
  ggplot() +
  aes(x = age_subject, y = rt_lexdec) +
  geom_point(position = position_jitter(0.2),
             alpha = 0.2) +
  geom_half_violin() +
  geom_boxplot(
    outlier.shape = NA,
               width = .3, 
               position = position_nudge(x=0.2)) 

Abbildung 5: Density, boxplot, scatterplot

Positioning errorbar plots

In the second report, you produced errorbar plots, but the errorbars were overlapping.

Abbildung 6: Overlapping errorbars

pivot_longer() |> summarise()

Let’s reproduce something similar using the english dataset. First, we’ll use pivot_longer() to lengthen our data, then we’ll create a summary of reaction times for the lexical decision task and naming task per age group.

sum_eng <-
  df_eng |> 
  pivot_longer(
    cols = c(rt_lexdec, rt_naming),
    names_to = "task",
    values_to = "rt"
  ) |> 
  summarise(
    mean = mean(rt, na.rm = T),
    sd = sd(rt, na.rm = T),
    .by = c(age_subject, task)
  ) |> 
  mutate(age_subject = factor(age_subject, levels = c("young", "old"))) 

Overlapping errorbars

If we create an errorbar plot of this data, we get Abbildung 7.

sum_eng |> 
  ggplot() +
  aes(x = age_subject, y = mean, colour = task, shape = task) +
  geom_point() +
  geom_errorbar(aes(ymin = mean-sd, ymax = mean+sd))

Abbildung 7: Overlapping errorbar plot

position_dodge()

We can add position = position_dodge(0.2) to force the errorbars to not overlap. We’ll also adjust their width so they’re not so wide (any value lower than 0.75).

sum_eng |> 
  ggplot() +
  aes(x = age_subject, y = mean, colour = task, shape = task) +
  geom_point() +
  geom_errorbar(aes(ymin = mean-sd, ymax = mean+sd),
                position = position_dodge(0.2),
                width = 0.2)

Abbildung 8: Overlapping errorbar plot

dodging all relevant geoms

But now we’ve left the points behind. We need to also dodge the points, so we add position_dodge() to geom_point(), making sure to use the same value as we did with geom_errorbar().

sum_eng |> 
  ggplot() +
  aes(x = age_subject, y = mean, colour = task, shape = task) +
  geom_point(position = position_dodge(0.2)) +
  geom_errorbar(aes(ymin = mean-sd, ymax = mean+sd),
                position = position_dodge(0.2),
                width = 0.2)

Abbildung 9: Overlapping errorbar plot

Customisations

What customisations do you see in the plots in Abbildung 10?

Code
fig_dens_colour <-
  df_eng %>% 
  ggplot(aes(x = age_subject, y = rt_lexdec, )) +
  geom_point(
    color = "grey",
    position = position_jitter(0.2),
                 alpha = 0.2) +
  geom_half_violin(
    aes(fill = age_subject)) +
  geom_boxplot(
    outlier.shape = NA,
    aes(color = age_subject),
               width = .3, 
               position = position_nudge(x=0.2)) +
  labs(title = "Distribution of reaction times",
       x = "Age group",
       y = "LDT reaction time (ms)",
    fill = "Age group") +
  scale_color_colorblind() +
  scale_fill_colorblind() +
  theme_minimal() +
  theme(legend.position = "none") 

fig_point_colour <-
  df_eng %>% 
  ggplot(aes(x = age_subject, y = rt_lexdec, )) +
  geom_point(
    aes(color = age_subject),
    position = position_jitter(0.2),
                 alpha = 0.2) +
  geom_half_violin() +
  geom_boxplot(
    outlier.shape = NA,
    # aes(color = age_subject),
               width = .3, 
               position = position_nudge(x=0.2)) +
  labs(title = "Distribution of reaction times",
       x = "Age group",
       y = "LDT reaction time (ms)",
    fill = "Age group") +
  scale_color_colorblind() +
  scale_fill_colorblind() +
  theme_minimal() +
  theme(legend.position = "none")

fig_default <-
  sum_eng %>% 
  ggplot(aes(x = age_subject, y = mean, 
             colour = task, shape = task)) +
  geom_point() +
  geom_errorbar(aes(ymin=mean-sd,ymax=mean+sd)) 

fig_custom <-
sum_eng %>%
  mutate(task = fct_recode(task,
                           "LDT" = "rt_lexdec",
                           "Naming" = "rt_naming"),
  age_subject = fct_recode(age_subject,
                           "Young" = "young",
                           "Old" = "old")) |> 
  ggplot(aes(x = age_subject, y = mean, 
             colour = task, shape = task)) +
  geom_point(position = position_dodge(0.3),
             size = 3) +
  geom_errorbar(aes(ymin=mean-sd,ymax=mean+sd),
                position = position_dodge(0.3), 
                width = .3) +
  geom_line(aes(group = task,
                linetype = task),
                position = position_dodge(0.3)) +
  theme_minimal() +
  labs(
    title = "Reaction times per group and task",
    x = "Age group",
    y = "Reaction time (ms)",
    colour = "Task",
    shape = "Task",
    linetype = "Task"
  ) +
  theme(axis.title = element_text(size = 12,
                                  face = "bold"),
        plot.title = element_text(size = 14),
        legend.title = element_text(face = "bold"))

Abbildung 10: Customised plots to facilitation data communication.

Default themes

Firstly, theme_minimal() was added to each plot to customise the general look. There are a variety of custom themes to try, like theme_bw() or theme_classic(). Try them out.

Abbildung 11: Preset themes

theme()

We can also control individual components of theme by adding customisations with theme(). For example we see in Abbildung 10 A the axis titles are bolded. This was achieved by adding theme(axis.title = element_text(face = "bold)), where axis.title = indicates we want to make a change to the axis titles, element_text() indicates it’s their text that we want to change, and face = "bold" indicates we want to make the text bold. The same was done for legend.title = to make the legend title bold.

fig_no_colour + theme_minimal() + 
  theme(
    axis.title = element_text(face = "italic")
    )
Abbildung 12: Using theme()

Heutige Ziele 🏁

Heute haben wir gelernt, wie man…

  • build multi-part plots ✅
  • adjust the position of geoms ✅
  • customise our plots for better data communicate ✅

Aufgaben

  1. Multi-part plot. Produce Abbildung 9 and Abbildung 5 for rt_naming (instead of rt_lexdec). Print the plots side-by-side using patchwork.

  2. Labels. Use labs() to add labels for the title, x- and y-axes, and for any aesthetics you used (shape, colour, etc.) that result in a legend. This should end with your legend title also having a custom name.

  3. Customisations. Add customisations to the two plots by choosing a default theme, followed by theme() with adjustments for the axis titles, legend title, and plot title. You can change face, size, family (i.e., font). You can type ?theme in the Console or try Googling to get some ideas. If you aren’t feeling creative, just try to replicate one of the customisations you see in Abbildung 10

Session Info

Hergestellt mit R version 4.3.0 (2023-04-21) (Already Tomorrow) und RStudioversion 2023.3.0.386 (Cherry Blossom).

print(sessionInfo(),locale = F)
R version 4.3.0 (2023-04-21)
Platform: aarch64-apple-darwin20 (64-bit)
Running under: macOS Ventura 13.2.1

Matrix products: default
BLAS:   /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.3-arm64/Resources/lib/libRblas.0.dylib 
LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.3-arm64/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib;  LAPACK version 3.11.0

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
 [1] magick_2.7.4    gghalves_0.1.4  patchwork_1.1.3 ggthemes_4.2.4 
 [5] janitor_2.2.0   here_1.0.1      lubridate_1.9.2 forcats_1.0.0  
 [9] stringr_1.5.0   dplyr_1.1.3     purrr_1.0.2     readr_2.1.4    
[13] tidyr_1.3.0     tibble_3.2.1    ggplot2_3.4.3   tidyverse_2.0.0

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] utf8_1.2.3       generics_0.1.3   stringi_1.7.12   hms_1.1.3       
 [5] digest_0.6.33    magrittr_2.0.3   evaluate_0.21    grid_4.3.0      
 [9] timechange_0.2.0 fastmap_1.1.1    rprojroot_2.0.3  jsonlite_1.8.7  
[13] fansi_1.0.4      scales_1.2.1     cli_3.6.1        crayon_1.5.2    
[17] rlang_1.1.1      bit64_4.0.5      munsell_0.5.0    withr_2.5.0     
[21] yaml_2.3.7       parallel_4.3.0   tools_4.3.0      tzdb_0.4.0      
[25] colorspace_2.1-0 pacman_0.5.1     vctrs_0.6.3      R6_2.5.1        
[29] lifecycle_1.0.3  snakecase_0.11.0 bit_4.0.5        vroom_1.6.3     
[33] pkgconfig_2.0.3  pillar_1.9.0     gtable_0.3.4     glue_1.6.2      
[37] Rcpp_1.0.11      xfun_0.39        tidyselect_1.2.0 rstudioapi_0.14 
[41] knitr_1.44       farver_2.1.1     htmltools_0.5.5  labeling_0.4.3  
[45] rmarkdown_2.22   compiler_4.3.0  

Literaturverzeichnis

Nordmann, E., McAleer, P., Toivo, W., Paterson, H., & DeBruine, L. M. (2022). Data Visualization Using R for Researchers Who Do Not Use R. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 5(2), 251524592210746. https://doi.org/10.1177/25152459221074654
Wickham, H., Çetinkaya-Rundel, M., & Grolemund, G. (2023). R for Data Science (2. Aufl.).